September 17, 2026 • 36 mins
By any measure, Margaretha Zelle led a fascinating life. As a Dutch dancer, socialite and courtesan called Mata Hari, her globe-trotting lifestyle caught the attention of both German and French intelligence agencies. And she happily took money from both sides. Yet, as Ben, Noel, and Max discover in today's episode, historians are still divided on the facts: Was Mata Hari really a master double agent... or a glamorous government scapegoat?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer, Max,
hold the line, Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What, what, what? I am actually a double agent. I
actually work for Jonathan Strickland, the Quister.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I know, I know. But that's, you know, you keep
your friends close.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Close.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You keep your podcast bros closer.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The closest. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And that is none other than the legendary Mr. Noel Brown.
They call me Ben Bolin. Noel, you and I were
talking with Max off mic about a little film by
a guy named Quentin called Inglourious Bastards.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Mm-hmm. Quentin Tarantella.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Tagliatelle.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I love that. That's way better. That's way better. I
love pasta puns.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
In that film, Noel, there is an infamous bar scene
where several spies are assembled, right, in German-occupied territory. And
they're playing a party game where they put a little
index card on their heads with a character, right? And
one guy gets King Kong. Another person gets a character
(01:41):
named Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, there's also a scene like that, and I think
you should leave, in the episode with Tim Heidecker where
he's the irritating jazz guy. Oh, no. You know, Tommy
the Worm! Tommy the Worm!
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, the Colgate Hour?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, my God, this gets special.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's not that exact game. It's a very similar one.
I think it was not in the next card game.
I think it was, but the Mata Hari, Ben. Let
us get to the point, shall we?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yes, yes. Mata Hari, a real... Perhaps most famous for
the way that she allegedly died, reputedly died, facing a
French firing squad, no blindfold. According to the legend, she
blew her executioners a kiss.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Did they give her a cigarette at least? In France,
I would hope so.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I always picture it that way, too. Are you and
I being unfair to French firing squads?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I don't know, man. They love ripping darts over there
in Paris.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
They sure do.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Even to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And we are speaking from firsthand experience there. Merci beaucoup
to the good people of France. Noel, this person, Mata Hari,
the subject of today's episode, is fascinating because it combines
so many things that you and Max and I just
(03:11):
adore and remain obsessed with. She's a courtesan, she's a spy,
she's traveling around the world. She gets into, what was
that thing, what was that word we learned a few
years ago, situationships or entanglements?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Oh, for sure. You always be getting into situations, Ben.
Is that the same as a situationship or is that different?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, Noel, you and I definitely get into any number
of situations.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, and some situations require situationships.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That is true, especially if you're playing reindeer games and
spy games. From what we understand, Mata Hari took money
from one side of a conflict, agreed to spy for another,
and people are still right now divided on how much
espionage Mata Hari actually performed. So, Noel, you, Max, and
(04:04):
I are going to riddle ourselves this in today's episode.
Was Hari a double agent?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Was Hari a double agent or was she the worst
spy in history or was she a scapegoat?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
An exceptionally glamorous one at that. And this one comes
to us by way of our brand new research associate, Natalia. Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Thank you, Natalia, because gosh knows we did not have
the full breadth of a profile about Mata Hari. It's
a strange name for a lot of people because this
is a person born in the Netherlands who And obviously
her birth name was not Mata Hari. It was, help
(04:47):
me out here, Noel. You're a little better with this
language than I am.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Oh, let's see. Margareta Getaruda Zella. Auf Leuarden. Auf Leuarden.
Nailed it. Okay, nice. Zella. You think her family came
up with the popular payment platform?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Let's choose to mark that podcast true.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So it's August 7th. 1876, when Margarita is born. She's
the oldest of four children. Of those four kids, she's
the only girl. And her father was a hatter. Points
to you, Natalia, for going out of your way to
say this is not a mad hatter, just a regular hatter,
(05:30):
a haberdasher, a hat maker.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, so he wasn't all hopped up on the mercury. Right.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, not at this point.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Thank God for that. Ben, I swear, I know the
name Mata Hari has been floating around in my head
for many years, and I always assumed it had something
to do with India.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, that's interesting, right? Especially given the sort of Orientalism
fad during her lifetime, especially given the exoticization of so
many other cultures around, During her lifetime, we also have
to mention, by the way, Mata Hari was not born,
named Mata Hari. We established that. She was also not
(06:12):
born poor because her father- Because of all that Zell money. Yeah,
because of all that Zell money. Her father had also
invested a lot in fossil fuels. He was an oil
man in practice. So this means that When Zell is
just about six years old, when Mata Hari is about
six years old, she gets new school clothes every year.
(06:37):
She rides around in, interesting fact here, Noel, a goat-drawn carriage.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Like you do when you're living it up. Yeah, she's
goaded indeed. She also was quite the glamour girl from
a very early age, but things changed. It took a
bit of a turn when Zell was around 13. Her
father couldn't keep their extravagant lifestyle going, and he declared bankruptcy.
(07:03):
Two years later, her mother passed away, and that was
the end of life for Zell, a.k.a. Mata Hari, as
she knew it, at least up to that point. Upon
her mother's passing, the family disintegrated for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, so it came to pass that Zell is sent
to live with other relatives. Historians are still divided on
exactly who those relatives were and where they were located,
but we do know When she was 15, she was
sent to a teacher training college, and her career would
(07:41):
have been, from that point, to become a kindergarten teacher.
It didn't last long, though, because the headmaster was a
super creep.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, he sure was, and he took quite the liking
to young Zell, making advances on her. It is possible
that they had a relationship, though. I mean, the power
dynamic in this really... Kind of makes it feel like
that was not consensual and there's no world where it
was 100%. The whole thing became quite the scandal and
(08:10):
Zell was asked to leave the school because, of course,
she was. Because those were the days where you were
going to always blame the victim and give her the
boot and let the creepy headmaster creep on creeping.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah. And as far as we could tell, that
did continue. she may well have not been the first
victim booted out of the institution. Just to make that
historical note. So if we are Zell at this point,
it's our second time as a teenager that we're forced
(08:44):
to move. This is the first scandal young Zell will encounter,
but it's far from the last. No, in 1895, Our
main character, our protagonist, Zell, is 18 years old and
she's reading the newspaper as you do. And she sees
a personal ad in the newspaper, in the classifieds, from
(09:08):
a man seeking a wife. I got to pause here, man, because.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
This is how you put it out in the paper.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
This used to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
This happened. I guess that track often it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Was it was more normalized. Can we learn a little
bit more about this guy?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We sure can. And Ben, for my purposes, calling her
Zell is weirding me out because I just keep thinking
I need to pay a bill. So I'm going to
call her Margarita from this point forward, and then we'll
get to Mata Hari eventually. That man that you mentioned,
the man in question, was one Rudolph John McCloud. He
was a Highlander. And there could only be one, and
it was him, Rudolph John McCloud. Don't Fact check us
(09:47):
on that. An officer on home leave from the Dutch
East Indies where he'd been stationed for 16 years. He
was in his late 30s, around 38 or 39. And
the personals ad, okay, it's a personal ad. It's not
as weird as we may have made it seem. At
the end of the day, we're all seeking companionship that
may or may not lead to becoming a spouse, right?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
No, that's a good point. You're right. You're right. And
he's been on the road for quite some time. Like
you said, he's a military man. He served his time
for 16 years in the Dutch East Indies. At this point,
John is about 38 or 39 years old. And he
would later claim that this personal ad was a prank
(10:30):
by one of his buddies. Well, we certainly know that
the personal ad prank is a classic. Sure.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's up there with the whoopee cushion.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Or the prank phone call. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah. Or swatting someone's home. So the exact same thing.
No one fact check us. So these folks just, you know,
whatever the providence of this ad could be, Manohari and
John get connected and they do decide to get married.
So they move out to Indonesia and they live in
(11:05):
this opulent house. They've got servants, but they're still struggling
with money. They're feeling very isolated. They fight all the time.
In between fighting, they have two children.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, had to get it in somewhere. They had two children,
Norman John McCloud and Louise Jean McCloud. It's very creative.
But in the summer of 1899, we've got further unfortunate
events that transpire. The children die. sadly became ill under
suspicious circumstances. Norman John passed away at the age of two,
(11:39):
and Louise Jean, who was just a baby, barely survived
the same malady. The story is to be believed the
children were poisoned by a disgruntled nanny or staff member.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, and there's also the possibility that these unfortunate children
were sick from syphilis treatments, and syphilis may have been
Some historians speculate that syphilis was passed on to them
via Zell herself, via Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And that would have happened if she, in fact, likely
would have happened if she was afflicted with that.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And a year after, a year and a half after
they moved to Indonesia, the family says, forget this. We're
going back to the Netherlands. So we're going to hop
on a boat. We're going to sail back to Europe.
And as Not as soon as they return, but very
shortly after they make it back to the Netherlands, they
(12:37):
get a divorce.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's right. And Margareta is given custody of Louise Jean,
referred to as Nan or Nonny, which I think is cute.
But McCloud refused to pay her any kind of child
support or alimony. Without any money, Margareta had to give
her child up. She ends up unhoused at the age
of 26. Um, and apparently her lawyer, she has a
(13:02):
lawyer still can't do anything because it is impossible to
seize the pension of someone who has served in the
Dutch East Indies. Is this like the, the, this is the, uh,
Dutch East India trading company or bad guys. They're the
real bad guys, like super duper political machine, like controlling
world events, you know, uh, iron fists of capitalism. Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Colonialism, very powerful. state-sponsored corporate entities in play. And Mata Hari, Marguerite,
is begging for custody of her daughter. And then she
also threatens. When a carrot doesn't work, a stick will do.
She says, look, if you don't give me custody of Nani,
(13:45):
then I will have to pursue a less decent lifestyle.
And they're pushing me toward it. You all are pushing
me toward it if you don't help me financially. That
less decent lifestyle can mean any number of things. We
know in 1903, she relocates to Paris, France, and we
(14:07):
want to thank the journalist Julie Wheelwright, writing for The Guardian,
who supplies us the following quotation. She, Mata Hari, tried
every means to earn money respectably, giving piano lessons, teaching German,
applying to work as a ladies' companion and as a
(14:28):
model at a department store. Less respectable, but more lucrative,
was sitting as an artist model for Montmartre painters such
as Edouard Besson, Octave-Denis-Victor Guionet, and Fernand Corbon, where she
made important theatrical contacts. So what they're saying here, Noel,
(14:49):
is that she might have been a nude model.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay. Okay, well, you know, it ain't bad work if
you can get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We also know that after this, she returned for a
time to Holland and then again returned to Paris in 1904.
This is where we see the emergence of her alter ego,
Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
That's right. She used her experience in Indonesia to create
this persona. Again, to your point earlier, Ben, kind of
trading on that exoticism and mysticism that she knew would
get folks talking because it was kind of, I don't know,
in vogue, I guess, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, to have the mysteries of the East.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Of the Far East, yes. I mean, and, you know,
of course, there's a certain amount of dismissiveness and racism
involved in that, but at the very least, it was
a fascination. So you could kind of capitalize on it
to a certain extent, even if you weren't actually of
Asian descent.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Absolutely, right. And this is arguably what could be called
yellow face. So Margarita is... understandable here we can empathize
with this she's doing anything she can to get enough
money to have custody of her daughter nani so she
starts dancing professionally in paris in the early 1900s 1905
(16:23):
or so uh and she like we're saying she's all
about branding what uh what persona do we present to
the world that's where she starts calling herself matahari which
is an expression in malay for The Sun. It transliterates
in English to Eye of the Day. And as far as,
(16:44):
not speaking for ourselves, as far as the audience of
the time found her, they loved it. They thought she
was awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Indeed, she was tall, quite attractive, you know, surface level
acquainted with East Indian traditions and dances and all of
that stuff. Again, this is all kind of offensive, but
what are you going to do? She was doing her best,
willing to appear virtually nude in public. Mata Hari was
an instant smash in Paris, which has always been a
(17:13):
bit of a baldy town, as well as other larger,
more metropolitan areas.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And she was also, again, very good at the PR side.
So she never explained her actual provenance or life story. Instead,
she let rumors swirl around, and she fed the fire
with innuendo, right, and ellipses. So people were asking, is
Mata Hari a Javanese princess? Has she been trained in
(17:41):
the art of sacred Indian dance from childhood? We don't know,
but we'd love to get tickets for the show.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Mm-hmm, we sure would. Soon she started to kind of
make her way on a bit of a tour to
all of the famous opera houses and theaters in all
of Europe. It is then when she begins to kick
off quite a the successful career as a stage performer. Again,
we're talking respectable joints. You wouldn't have called them that,
(18:13):
I suppose. But places like La Scala in Milan or
the Olympia in Paris or the Opera of Monte Carlo.
I mean, this is definitely making some waves with the
upper crust.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
A hundred percent. And it's not just the action of
the dancing. There is a big spectacle here. She has
this extravagant hairdress style. She's got a ton of exotic jewelry.
And we'll say it honestly, she's a bit out there
with the translucent veils. You know, there's an aspect of
(18:50):
burlesque around her performance. And at this point, she is
receiving 10,000 francs for a show. If we could inflation calculate.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
A boot.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
That is around 37 000 euros now which uh full
disclosure folks is uh more than noel and max and
yours truly have ever made for a live show so
maybe we just need like more veils you know what i.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Mean i think i'm down with it well yeah speaking
of The sexy dances. You know the dance of the
seven veils that Salome did? Yeah. Yeah, it just reminds
me of that. But what year– were we talking here?
I lost track of the chronology.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So now we're a little bit past 1905. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's interesting. I thought I was going to bring this up.
That's why I wanted to confirm. This exoticism was not
only happening in Europe. It was massively popular. in New
York City. I recently was in New York, and I
went to this really awesome cocktail bar called The Opera House.
And it is in the lower level of another really
cool cocktail bar slash restaurant called Chinese Tuxedo. in New
(20:03):
York's Chinatown. And from 1893 to 1911, this was New
York's first Chinese theater. And it was like Chinese opera.
And they actually, if you go to this place, they're
playing Chinese opera music. And it's fascinating stuff. I'd never
really heard anything quite like it before. And I swear, dude,
when we walked into this place, it was kind of
(20:24):
a random one of those nights. I was like, does
this not feel like that scene at the beginning of
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and or like
a place that would have been run by the Chinese mob? 100%
was the case. Red curtains everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Triad field.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh, dude.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Dark wood furniture.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
They said there were actually secret tunnels in the walls
where they would smuggle criminals out and things like that.
It was a fascinating place. And our server was really
knowledgeable about the whole history of the place. So just
wanted to shoot that out to you. It's on Doyer
Street in the Lower East Side Chinatown in Manhattan. Phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, check it out.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It would have been right along the side of what
was going on in our story. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And it's quite possible. When did you say that was constructed?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, I don't know when it was constructed, but it
operated from 1893 to 1911.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So it is completely possible then at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
She might have made her way there.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That they were at least using Mata Hari branded merchandise
because she got super into merchandise. Well, companies used her
image if they didn't compensate her. They used her name
for cigarettes, liqueurs, other products of vice. So if we
go to 1907, Mata Hari is a millionaire for a time,
(21:43):
but she keeps spending the money, at least according to
her biographers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Spending it as quickly as it comes in. She became
a bit of a socialite as well and would make
regular appearances in magazines. I mean, she was a star,
including publications like Vogue. So wherever she was, she was
always followed around by like, I don't know, I'm just
going to call it a harem of dudes.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
An entourage, right, of quarters. And she's known for holding audiences.
She wants to flirt publicly. She wants the suitors to
line up for her. She also starts to develop what
the media at the time sees as a type. She
likes high-ranking military officers. She likes aristocrats.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Love a man in uniform.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
She loves a man in uniform. And despite the fact
that she's making a lot of money dancing, she's relying
on her suitors to support her from 1908 to 1912.
A few years after 1912, there's a funny thing that
happens in Europe.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, a funny thing happened indeed. A little old skirmish.
What do they call it? A little dalliance called World
War I. That's the one. When Germany declared war on
France on August 3rd of 1914, yeah, the show would
not go on, it turns out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, no more performances for the world-famous Mata Hari, which
means no more life of luxury for our protagonist. She
is in Berlin when Germany declares war, and the bank
freezes all of her assets, so she starts leaning more
(23:28):
ardently on her various quarters and lovers to support her lifestyle.
Stuff is not looking great, but there is a silver
lining because amid this chaos, the nation of the Netherlands
stays neutral, which means that Mata Hari is allowed to
travel throughout Europe in a way that a lot of
(23:50):
people cannot.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And that would be where the Hague was, where they
would try war criminals because of that neutral stance. It's also.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
got to be tough at the borders right when you're
traveling and it's it's very much a papers please kind
of situation and the thing is she can't really be
inconspicuous at this point she's kind of like a kardashian
level of uh pop culture.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Cover of vogue man i mean she's huge yeah so
wherever she goes people are looking at her even when
she's not in costume they're like oh hey I think
I know that tall lady from the cover of Vogue.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You know, that's a good point, Ben. I mean, she
definitely was sort of statuesque and had a cut a
certain figure, but you would think she might, since she
was so costume-oriented, be able to disguise herself a little
bit better.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Ooh, that's a great point, Noel. We also know that
intelligence agencies from several countries were watching her every move.
They were studying her progress, Because she was one of
the few people that could traverse international borders easily. This
is where we get to, like you mentioned, The Hague.
(25:03):
She was living in The Hague in May 1916. The
Hague is a place. It's not just a building. We
know it's a confusing name. While she's living there, a
consul from Germany, a diplomatic figure, reputedly visits her and says, Hey,
baby duck, I hear you're going back to Paris.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Right, and this man knew for a fact that she
was planning to travel back to Paris, and he told
her that he wanted to do a little job for him.
He wanted to recruit her as a spy, and during
her time there, do a little bit of spying. For
the job, he offered her 20,000 francs, or about 50,000
euros with today's money. She accepted the offer, though it's
unclear if she actually planned on doing the requested spying.
(25:47):
She was just like, yeah, just put it right in
my fist. Yeah, just leave it. Leave the money there.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And it was nice to meet you. You know, guten tag.
So once she does go back to Paris, the German
intel is correct. And when she gets there, maybe. folks,
may be fueled off this new infusion of cash.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Fistful of cash.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Right, right, right. How much more shady can one be?
Bag of loose diamonds, by the way. That's the answer.
She gets this glamorous, high-profile lifestyle again. She meets up
with various paramours. But she also has an appointment with
French intelligence agents.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, and they were there waiting for her. They monitor
her super closely, hoping to catch her in the act
in pro-German activities. In Paris, she came up with a
plan to make a trip to a luxurious spa near
the front lines of the war called Vittel. Um, she
at this point had fallen for a dashing young Russian captain.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Allegedly fallen.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Allegedly.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's right. And at the spa, she was able to, uh,
set up a meeting with him or that was where
they were going to have a little rendezvous under the
guise of, uh, her failing health. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh, I feel so poorly. I must take a constitutional
in the tail. It's simply the only place, uh, that
can accommodate my lifestyle. Uh, And then people were naturally asking, hey,
you know, Vettel is in the military zone, right? So
you got to get some paperwork.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
For this one. And so another one of her former
suitors or whatever current perhaps referred her to the immigration office.
She get the paperwork and that's at 282 Boulevard Saint-Germain.
But the headquarters of the French intelligence services were in
the same building.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Whoopsie doopsie. So this leads Mata Hari to find herself
in the office of a guy named Captain Ledoux, the
head of the French intelligence service at the time. And
he has already been warned by his British peers about
this person, about Mata Hari. The warnings he got were
(28:08):
along the lines of, don't trust this person. Don't mistake
them for a shallow celebrity. There's deep water here. And
he has been shadowing her for like a month plus.
So now all of a sudden, let us imagine Captain Ladeau,
his suspect, his quarry is thrown into his lap. Like
(28:32):
you were saying, Noel, they're in the same building at
this point. And he says, I'm going to win her trust.
I'm going to approve your paperwork. And he tries to
make friends with her, but he is convinced that that
she is spying for the Germans.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And some of this comes from a really cool article
on the website of a fascinating-sounding museum in the Netherlands
called the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yes, and thank you to the excellent researchers there. This
captain is thinking, this is my chance to prove that
this person is spying for Germany, so I'm going to
set a trap. She comes back from Vittel, And this guy,
this captain says, you know, Mata Hari, I want to
(29:21):
recruit you as a French spy for the Belgium theater.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I think you're good. I think you're famous. You can
travel easily. This is a win-win. Margarita Matahari senses an opportunity,
and she says, okay, I'll play your reindeer games for,
dramatic pause, one million francs.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Ooh, that's quite a bit of a raise there, huh?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, 2.5 million euros for those of us playing along
at home.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And she really needs it, too, for her dowry, I guess.
I don't think she really wants to marry that dashing
Russian captain.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah. And this French intelligence officer says, look, go to
the Netherlands. You'll get further instruction there and we will
pay you after you complete your mission. So she sets off.
And this is where the story gets really murky. Like
we hear different angles about it.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, yeah, it definitely bifurcates a bit in terms of
the telling, and one version of it is that she
agreed to spy for both sides, and that she was
a double agent, playing both sides against each other with
neither knowing that she'd been recruited by the other.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, and, you know, it's tough to prove.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Which is badass, if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, it's tough to prove some of this stuff, too,
because of the nature of that skullduggery, but we do
know for sure on February 13th, 1917... French authorities did
arrest her in Paris, and they arrested her on charges
of spying for Germany. So this is Captain Ladeau's trap.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Prosecutors claimed that Mata Hari's espionage contributed to the deaths
of more than 50,000 French soldiers. This is treasonous stuff. However,
to your point, Ben, very little evidence to support the claim. However,
in July 1917, she was tried by a military court
and convicted of espionage. and sentenced to death.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
So we'll forward here after sentencing to October 15th, 1917.
This time of year, it's autumnal, it's cold in Paris,
and most of the population is still sleeping in when
Marguerite is taken from death row to a firing range.
And at the execution site, the firing squad is already there,
(31:45):
they're loaded up, they're ready to carry out the sentence.
And Margarita legendarily says, you don't have to tie my hands.
You don't have to blindfold me. This is where we
get the report from some eyewitnesses who said she blew
a kiss to the crowd one last time before they
(32:06):
opened fire. And so at this time, the firing squads
are pretty active. It's not abnormal to hear gunshots in
the morning like this. And just after sunrise, Mata Hari
is dead by a firing squad. She is just 41
years old.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, and I mean, she really was kind of a heel,
you know, in the region. European newspapers are applauding her demise,
referring to the situation as an unmasking, referring to her
as a consciousness spy, and that she deserved what she got.
All the while, the French state is actually auctioning off
(32:47):
all of her seized possessions to pay for the cost
of the trial.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
That's correct. Yeah, the body, they say, is going to
be donated to a teaching hospital. And all of a sudden,
you know, we see this now with the strange wave
of loving and hating celebrities. All of a sudden, Europe,
which once loved Mata Hari, turns against her and says
(33:13):
terrible things about this person. We also have to mention,
as we're closing up here, that there is a huge
possibility that Mata Hari was herself a scapegoat, right? Because
we said there are serious questions about how much spying
she actually did. We know that the French military had
(33:35):
very low morale in 1917. There were mutinies in the
armed forces.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Needed a win. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
People needed a win. They were looking for someone to blame,
a face that they could put to their problems, someone
to punish.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, and people also love a fall from grace story too,
don't they? Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So now we've got all the ingredients for Mata Hari
to be a perfect scapegoat. She's not from France.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
She's a foreigner. She's a foreigner.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
And she has a reputation for being seductive. So she's
someone that is easy for the public to hate.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
In the subsequent years, a lot more research was done
into the situation. Numerous books and film adaptations of her
life came out. And as more and more research was done,
it became clear. pretty clear that she got a bum rap.
The German government did eventually exonerate her after posthumously, obviously.
(34:34):
Doesn't really do too much good, but I get it.
I guess it helped with her legacy in 1930. And
the French dossier that collected all of her supposed spying
activities apparently contained information that indicated that she was, in fact, innocent.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, and history is so much closer than it looks
in the rearview mirror, folks. We can tell you that
as recently as 2017, France was following up on Mata Hari.
They released various documents relating to the case, and these
documents led a lot of historians to believe that this
(35:11):
woman had been a scapegoat of French officials who were
looking for someone to blame, some kind of a societal
escape hatch, right? A vent for people to get their
frustrations out. And in addition, there were a lot of
people speculating that Mata Hari's disregard for the norms of
(35:32):
the day and the taboos of the day played a
huge role in her arrest, conviction, and execution. Because one
thing that is true throughout most of Western history is boy, howdy,
the patriarch hates women.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You got that right, Ben. And I think we've shown
that in plenty of episodes of this show right here.
But huge thanks to our research associate, Natalia, for her
very first research brief and a subject that I was
woefully underschooled on. Agreed.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Thank you, Natalia, and can't wait to explore more of
your work in the future. Big, big thanks to our
super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Big thanks as well to A.J.
Bahamas Jacobs, a.k.a. The Puzzler, and a tepid We know
what you did to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
The Quister. I know what you did last summer, Jonathan.
It was bad. And also, gosh, Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Rachel Big Spinish Lance, the doctor herself of
underwater big booms.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Christopher Asiotis, Eve's Jeffcoat, here in spirit. And Noel, big
thanks to you.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You as well, man. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer, Max,
hold the line, Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What, what, what? I am actually a double agent. I
actually work for Jonathan Strickland, the Quister.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I know, I know. But that's, you know, you keep
your friends close.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Close.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You keep your podcast bros closer.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The closest. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And that is none other than the legendary Mr. Noel Brown.
They call me Ben Bolin. Noel, you and I were
talking with Max off mic about a little film by
a guy named Quentin called Inglourious Bastards.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Mm-hmm. Quentin Tarantella.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Tagliatelle.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I love that. That's way better. That's way better. I
love pasta puns.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
In that film, Noel, there is an infamous bar scene
where several spies are assembled, right, in German-occupied territory. And
they're playing a party game where they put a little
index card on their heads with a character, right? And
one guy gets King Kong. Another person gets a character
(01:41):
named Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, there's also a scene like that, and I think
you should leave, in the episode with Tim Heidecker where
he's the irritating jazz guy. Oh, no. You know, Tommy
the Worm! Tommy the Worm!
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, the Colgate Hour?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Oh, my God, this gets special.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It's not that exact game. It's a very similar one.
I think it was not in the next card game.
I think it was, but the Mata Hari, Ben. Let
us get to the point, shall we?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yes, yes. Mata Hari, a real... Perhaps most famous for
the way that she allegedly died, reputedly died, facing a
French firing squad, no blindfold. According to the legend, she
blew her executioners a kiss.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Did they give her a cigarette at least? In France,
I would hope so.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I always picture it that way, too. Are you and
I being unfair to French firing squads?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I don't know, man. They love ripping darts over there
in Paris.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
They sure do.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Even to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And we are speaking from firsthand experience there. Merci beaucoup
to the good people of France. Noel, this person, Mata Hari,
the subject of today's episode, is fascinating because it combines
so many things that you and Max and I just
(03:11):
adore and remain obsessed with. She's a courtesan, she's a spy,
she's traveling around the world. She gets into, what was
that thing, what was that word we learned a few
years ago, situationships or entanglements?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Oh, for sure. You always be getting into situations, Ben.
Is that the same as a situationship or is that different?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, Noel, you and I definitely get into any number
of situations.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, and some situations require situationships.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That is true, especially if you're playing reindeer games and
spy games. From what we understand, Mata Hari took money
from one side of a conflict, agreed to spy for another,
and people are still right now divided on how much
espionage Mata Hari actually performed. So, Noel, you, Max, and
(04:04):
I are going to riddle ourselves this in today's episode.
Was Hari a double agent?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Was Hari a double agent or was she the worst
spy in history or was she a scapegoat?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
An exceptionally glamorous one at that. And this one comes
to us by way of our brand new research associate, Natalia. Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Thank you, Natalia, because gosh knows we did not have
the full breadth of a profile about Mata Hari. It's
a strange name for a lot of people because this
is a person born in the Netherlands who And obviously
her birth name was not Mata Hari. It was, help
(04:47):
me out here, Noel. You're a little better with this
language than I am.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Oh, let's see. Margareta Getaruda Zella. Auf Leuarden. Auf Leuarden.
Nailed it. Okay, nice. Zella. You think her family came
up with the popular payment platform?
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Let's choose to mark that podcast true.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Hell yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So it's August 7th. 1876, when Margarita is born. She's
the oldest of four children. Of those four kids, she's
the only girl. And her father was a hatter. Points
to you, Natalia, for going out of your way to
say this is not a mad hatter, just a regular hatter,
(05:30):
a haberdasher, a hat maker.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, so he wasn't all hopped up on the mercury. Right.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, not at this point.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Thank God for that. Ben, I swear, I know the
name Mata Hari has been floating around in my head
for many years, and I always assumed it had something
to do with India.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, that's interesting, right? Especially given the sort of Orientalism
fad during her lifetime, especially given the exoticization of so
many other cultures around, During her lifetime, we also have
to mention, by the way, Mata Hari was not born,
named Mata Hari. We established that. She was also not
(06:12):
born poor because her father- Because of all that Zell money. Yeah,
because of all that Zell money. Her father had also
invested a lot in fossil fuels. He was an oil
man in practice. So this means that When Zell is
just about six years old, when Mata Hari is about
six years old, she gets new school clothes every year.
(06:37):
She rides around in, interesting fact here, Noel, a goat-drawn carriage.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Like you do when you're living it up. Yeah, she's
goaded indeed. She also was quite the glamour girl from
a very early age, but things changed. It took a
bit of a turn when Zell was around 13. Her
father couldn't keep their extravagant lifestyle going, and he declared bankruptcy.
(07:03):
Two years later, her mother passed away, and that was
the end of life for Zell, a.k.a. Mata Hari, as
she knew it, at least up to that point. Upon
her mother's passing, the family disintegrated for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, so it came to pass that Zell is sent
to live with other relatives. Historians are still divided on
exactly who those relatives were and where they were located,
but we do know When she was 15, she was
sent to a teacher training college, and her career would
(07:41):
have been, from that point, to become a kindergarten teacher.
It didn't last long, though, because the headmaster was a
super creep.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, he sure was, and he took quite the liking
to young Zell, making advances on her. It is possible
that they had a relationship, though. I mean, the power
dynamic in this really... Kind of makes it feel like
that was not consensual and there's no world where it
was 100%. The whole thing became quite the scandal and
(08:10):
Zell was asked to leave the school because, of course,
she was. Because those were the days where you were
going to always blame the victim and give her the
boot and let the creepy headmaster creep on creeping.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, yeah. And as far as we could tell, that
did continue. she may well have not been the first
victim booted out of the institution. Just to make that
historical note. So if we are Zell at this point,
it's our second time as a teenager that we're forced
(08:44):
to move. This is the first scandal young Zell will encounter,
but it's far from the last. No, in 1895, Our
main character, our protagonist, Zell, is 18 years old and
she's reading the newspaper as you do. And she sees
a personal ad in the newspaper, in the classifieds, from
(09:08):
a man seeking a wife. I got to pause here, man, because.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
This is how you put it out in the paper.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
This used to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
This happened. I guess that track often it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Was it was more normalized. Can we learn a little
bit more about this guy?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We sure can. And Ben, for my purposes, calling her
Zell is weirding me out because I just keep thinking
I need to pay a bill. So I'm going to
call her Margarita from this point forward, and then we'll
get to Mata Hari eventually. That man that you mentioned,
the man in question, was one Rudolph John McCloud. He
was a Highlander. And there could only be one, and
it was him, Rudolph John McCloud. Don't Fact check us
(09:47):
on that. An officer on home leave from the Dutch
East Indies where he'd been stationed for 16 years. He
was in his late 30s, around 38 or 39. And
the personals ad, okay, it's a personal ad. It's not
as weird as we may have made it seem. At
the end of the day, we're all seeking companionship that
may or may not lead to becoming a spouse, right?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
No, that's a good point. You're right. You're right. And
he's been on the road for quite some time. Like
you said, he's a military man. He served his time
for 16 years in the Dutch East Indies. At this point,
John is about 38 or 39 years old. And he
would later claim that this personal ad was a prank
(10:30):
by one of his buddies. Well, we certainly know that
the personal ad prank is a classic. Sure.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's up there with the whoopee cushion.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Or the prank phone call. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah. Or swatting someone's home. So the exact same thing.
No one fact check us. So these folks just, you know,
whatever the providence of this ad could be, Manohari and
John get connected and they do decide to get married.
So they move out to Indonesia and they live in
(11:05):
this opulent house. They've got servants, but they're still struggling
with money. They're feeling very isolated. They fight all the time.
In between fighting, they have two children.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, had to get it in somewhere. They had two children,
Norman John McCloud and Louise Jean McCloud. It's very creative.
But in the summer of 1899, we've got further unfortunate
events that transpire. The children die. sadly became ill under
suspicious circumstances. Norman John passed away at the age of two,
(11:39):
and Louise Jean, who was just a baby, barely survived
the same malady. The story is to be believed the
children were poisoned by a disgruntled nanny or staff member.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, and there's also the possibility that these unfortunate children
were sick from syphilis treatments, and syphilis may have been
Some historians speculate that syphilis was passed on to them
via Zell herself, via Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And that would have happened if she, in fact, likely
would have happened if she was afflicted with that.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And a year after, a year and a half after
they moved to Indonesia, the family says, forget this. We're
going back to the Netherlands. So we're going to hop
on a boat. We're going to sail back to Europe.
And as Not as soon as they return, but very
shortly after they make it back to the Netherlands, they
(12:37):
get a divorce.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's right. And Margareta is given custody of Louise Jean,
referred to as Nan or Nonny, which I think is cute.
But McCloud refused to pay her any kind of child
support or alimony. Without any money, Margareta had to give
her child up. She ends up unhoused at the age
of 26. Um, and apparently her lawyer, she has a
(13:02):
lawyer still can't do anything because it is impossible to
seize the pension of someone who has served in the
Dutch East Indies. Is this like the, the, this is the, uh,
Dutch East India trading company or bad guys. They're the
real bad guys, like super duper political machine, like controlling
world events, you know, uh, iron fists of capitalism. Yes.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Colonialism, very powerful. state-sponsored corporate entities in play. And Mata Hari, Marguerite,
is begging for custody of her daughter. And then she
also threatens. When a carrot doesn't work, a stick will do.
She says, look, if you don't give me custody of Nani,
(13:45):
then I will have to pursue a less decent lifestyle.
And they're pushing me toward it. You all are pushing
me toward it if you don't help me financially. That
less decent lifestyle can mean any number of things. We
know in 1903, she relocates to Paris, France, and we
(14:07):
want to thank the journalist Julie Wheelwright, writing for The Guardian,
who supplies us the following quotation. She, Mata Hari, tried
every means to earn money respectably, giving piano lessons, teaching German,
applying to work as a ladies' companion and as a
(14:28):
model at a department store. Less respectable, but more lucrative,
was sitting as an artist model for Montmartre painters such
as Edouard Besson, Octave-Denis-Victor Guionet, and Fernand Corbon, where she
made important theatrical contacts. So what they're saying here, Noel,
(14:49):
is that she might have been a nude model.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay. Okay, well, you know, it ain't bad work if
you can get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We also know that after this, she returned for a
time to Holland and then again returned to Paris in 1904.
This is where we see the emergence of her alter ego,
Mata Hari.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
That's right. She used her experience in Indonesia to create
this persona. Again, to your point earlier, Ben, kind of
trading on that exoticism and mysticism that she knew would
get folks talking because it was kind of, I don't know,
in vogue, I guess, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, to have the mysteries of the East.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Of the Far East, yes. I mean, and, you know,
of course, there's a certain amount of dismissiveness and racism
involved in that, but at the very least, it was
a fascination. So you could kind of capitalize on it
to a certain extent, even if you weren't actually of
Asian descent.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Absolutely, right. And this is arguably what could be called
yellow face. So Margarita is... understandable here we can empathize
with this she's doing anything she can to get enough
money to have custody of her daughter nani so she
starts dancing professionally in paris in the early 1900s 1905
(16:23):
or so uh and she like we're saying she's all
about branding what uh what persona do we present to
the world that's where she starts calling herself matahari which
is an expression in malay for The Sun. It transliterates
in English to Eye of the Day. And as far as,
(16:44):
not speaking for ourselves, as far as the audience of
the time found her, they loved it. They thought she
was awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Indeed, she was tall, quite attractive, you know, surface level
acquainted with East Indian traditions and dances and all of
that stuff. Again, this is all kind of offensive, but
what are you going to do? She was doing her best,
willing to appear virtually nude in public. Mata Hari was
an instant smash in Paris, which has always been a
(17:13):
bit of a baldy town, as well as other larger,
more metropolitan areas.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
And she was also, again, very good at the PR side.
So she never explained her actual provenance or life story. Instead,
she let rumors swirl around, and she fed the fire
with innuendo, right, and ellipses. So people were asking, is
Mata Hari a Javanese princess? Has she been trained in
(17:41):
the art of sacred Indian dance from childhood? We don't know,
but we'd love to get tickets for the show.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Mm-hmm, we sure would. Soon she started to kind of
make her way on a bit of a tour to
all of the famous opera houses and theaters in all
of Europe. It is then when she begins to kick
off quite a the successful career as a stage performer. Again,
we're talking respectable joints. You wouldn't have called them that,
(18:13):
I suppose. But places like La Scala in Milan or
the Olympia in Paris or the Opera of Monte Carlo.
I mean, this is definitely making some waves with the
upper crust.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
A hundred percent. And it's not just the action of
the dancing. There is a big spectacle here. She has
this extravagant hairdress style. She's got a ton of exotic jewelry.
And we'll say it honestly, she's a bit out there
with the translucent veils. You know, there's an aspect of
(18:50):
burlesque around her performance. And at this point, she is
receiving 10,000 francs for a show. If we could inflation calculate.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
A boot.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
That is around 37 000 euros now which uh full
disclosure folks is uh more than noel and max and
yours truly have ever made for a live show so
maybe we just need like more veils you know what i.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Mean i think i'm down with it well yeah speaking
of The sexy dances. You know the dance of the
seven veils that Salome did? Yeah. Yeah, it just reminds
me of that. But what year– were we talking here?
I lost track of the chronology.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So now we're a little bit past 1905. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's interesting. I thought I was going to bring this up.
That's why I wanted to confirm. This exoticism was not
only happening in Europe. It was massively popular. in New
York City. I recently was in New York, and I
went to this really awesome cocktail bar called The Opera House.
And it is in the lower level of another really
cool cocktail bar slash restaurant called Chinese Tuxedo. in New
(20:03):
York's Chinatown. And from 1893 to 1911, this was New
York's first Chinese theater. And it was like Chinese opera.
And they actually, if you go to this place, they're
playing Chinese opera music. And it's fascinating stuff. I'd never
really heard anything quite like it before. And I swear, dude,
when we walked into this place, it was kind of
(20:24):
a random one of those nights. I was like, does
this not feel like that scene at the beginning of
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and or like
a place that would have been run by the Chinese mob? 100%
was the case. Red curtains everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Triad field.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh, dude.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Dark wood furniture.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
They said there were actually secret tunnels in the walls
where they would smuggle criminals out and things like that.
It was a fascinating place. And our server was really
knowledgeable about the whole history of the place. So just
wanted to shoot that out to you. It's on Doyer
Street in the Lower East Side Chinatown in Manhattan. Phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yeah, check it out.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It would have been right along the side of what
was going on in our story. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And it's quite possible. When did you say that was constructed?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, I don't know when it was constructed, but it
operated from 1893 to 1911.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So it is completely possible then at this point.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
She might have made her way there.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That they were at least using Mata Hari branded merchandise
because she got super into merchandise. Well, companies used her
image if they didn't compensate her. They used her name
for cigarettes, liqueurs, other products of vice. So if we
go to 1907, Mata Hari is a millionaire for a time,
(21:43):
but she keeps spending the money, at least according to
her biographers.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Spending it as quickly as it comes in. She became
a bit of a socialite as well and would make
regular appearances in magazines. I mean, she was a star,
including publications like Vogue. So wherever she was, she was
always followed around by like, I don't know, I'm just
going to call it a harem of dudes.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
An entourage, right, of quarters. And she's known for holding audiences.
She wants to flirt publicly. She wants the suitors to
line up for her. She also starts to develop what
the media at the time sees as a type. She
likes high-ranking military officers. She likes aristocrats.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Love a man in uniform.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
She loves a man in uniform. And despite the fact
that she's making a lot of money dancing, she's relying
on her suitors to support her from 1908 to 1912.
A few years after 1912, there's a funny thing that
happens in Europe.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, a funny thing happened indeed. A little old skirmish.
What do they call it? A little dalliance called World
War I. That's the one. When Germany declared war on
France on August 3rd of 1914, yeah, the show would
not go on, it turns out.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, no more performances for the world-famous Mata Hari, which
means no more life of luxury for our protagonist. She
is in Berlin when Germany declares war, and the bank
freezes all of her assets, so she starts leaning more
(23:28):
ardently on her various quarters and lovers to support her lifestyle.
Stuff is not looking great, but there is a silver
lining because amid this chaos, the nation of the Netherlands
stays neutral, which means that Mata Hari is allowed to
travel throughout Europe in a way that a lot of
(23:50):
people cannot.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And that would be where the Hague was, where they
would try war criminals because of that neutral stance. It's also.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
got to be tough at the borders right when you're
traveling and it's it's very much a papers please kind
of situation and the thing is she can't really be
inconspicuous at this point she's kind of like a kardashian
level of uh pop culture.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Cover of vogue man i mean she's huge yeah so
wherever she goes people are looking at her even when
she's not in costume they're like oh hey I think
I know that tall lady from the cover of Vogue.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
You know, that's a good point, Ben. I mean, she
definitely was sort of statuesque and had a cut a
certain figure, but you would think she might, since she
was so costume-oriented, be able to disguise herself a little
bit better.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Ooh, that's a great point, Noel. We also know that
intelligence agencies from several countries were watching her every move.
They were studying her progress, Because she was one of
the few people that could traverse international borders easily. This
is where we get to, like you mentioned, The Hague.
(25:03):
She was living in The Hague in May 1916. The
Hague is a place. It's not just a building. We
know it's a confusing name. While she's living there, a
consul from Germany, a diplomatic figure, reputedly visits her and says, Hey,
baby duck, I hear you're going back to Paris.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Right, and this man knew for a fact that she
was planning to travel back to Paris, and he told
her that he wanted to do a little job for him.
He wanted to recruit her as a spy, and during
her time there, do a little bit of spying. For
the job, he offered her 20,000 francs, or about 50,000
euros with today's money. She accepted the offer, though it's
unclear if she actually planned on doing the requested spying.
(25:47):
She was just like, yeah, just put it right in
my fist. Yeah, just leave it. Leave the money there.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And it was nice to meet you. You know, guten tag.
So once she does go back to Paris, the German
intel is correct. And when she gets there, maybe. folks,
may be fueled off this new infusion of cash.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Fistful of cash.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Right, right, right. How much more shady can one be?
Bag of loose diamonds, by the way. That's the answer.
She gets this glamorous, high-profile lifestyle again. She meets up
with various paramours. But she also has an appointment with
French intelligence agents.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, and they were there waiting for her. They monitor
her super closely, hoping to catch her in the act
in pro-German activities. In Paris, she came up with a
plan to make a trip to a luxurious spa near
the front lines of the war called Vittel. Um, she
at this point had fallen for a dashing young Russian captain.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Allegedly fallen.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Allegedly.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's right. And at the spa, she was able to, uh,
set up a meeting with him or that was where
they were going to have a little rendezvous under the
guise of, uh, her failing health. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh, I feel so poorly. I must take a constitutional
in the tail. It's simply the only place, uh, that
can accommodate my lifestyle. Uh, And then people were naturally asking, hey,
you know, Vettel is in the military zone, right? So
you got to get some paperwork.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
For this one. And so another one of her former
suitors or whatever current perhaps referred her to the immigration office.
She get the paperwork and that's at 282 Boulevard Saint-Germain.
But the headquarters of the French intelligence services were in
the same building.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Whoopsie doopsie. So this leads Mata Hari to find herself
in the office of a guy named Captain Ledoux, the
head of the French intelligence service at the time. And
he has already been warned by his British peers about
this person, about Mata Hari. The warnings he got were
(28:08):
along the lines of, don't trust this person. Don't mistake
them for a shallow celebrity. There's deep water here. And
he has been shadowing her for like a month plus.
So now all of a sudden, let us imagine Captain Ladeau,
his suspect, his quarry is thrown into his lap. Like
(28:32):
you were saying, Noel, they're in the same building at
this point. And he says, I'm going to win her trust.
I'm going to approve your paperwork. And he tries to
make friends with her, but he is convinced that that
she is spying for the Germans.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And some of this comes from a really cool article
on the website of a fascinating-sounding museum in the Netherlands
called the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yes, and thank you to the excellent researchers there. This
captain is thinking, this is my chance to prove that
this person is spying for Germany, so I'm going to
set a trap. She comes back from Vittel, And this guy,
this captain says, you know, Mata Hari, I want to
(29:21):
recruit you as a French spy for the Belgium theater.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
I think you're good. I think you're famous. You can
travel easily. This is a win-win. Margarita Matahari senses an opportunity,
and she says, okay, I'll play your reindeer games for,
dramatic pause, one million francs.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Ooh, that's quite a bit of a raise there, huh?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, 2.5 million euros for those of us playing along
at home.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
And she really needs it, too, for her dowry, I guess.
I don't think she really wants to marry that dashing
Russian captain.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah. And this French intelligence officer says, look, go to
the Netherlands. You'll get further instruction there and we will
pay you after you complete your mission. So she sets off.
And this is where the story gets really murky. Like
we hear different angles about it.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, yeah, it definitely bifurcates a bit in terms of
the telling, and one version of it is that she
agreed to spy for both sides, and that she was
a double agent, playing both sides against each other with
neither knowing that she'd been recruited by the other.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, and, you know, it's tough to prove.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Which is badass, if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yeah, it's tough to prove some of this stuff, too,
because of the nature of that skullduggery, but we do
know for sure on February 13th, 1917... French authorities did
arrest her in Paris, and they arrested her on charges
of spying for Germany. So this is Captain Ladeau's trap.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Prosecutors claimed that Mata Hari's espionage contributed to the deaths
of more than 50,000 French soldiers. This is treasonous stuff. However,
to your point, Ben, very little evidence to support the claim. However,
in July 1917, she was tried by a military court
and convicted of espionage. and sentenced to death.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
So we'll forward here after sentencing to October 15th, 1917.
This time of year, it's autumnal, it's cold in Paris,
and most of the population is still sleeping in when
Marguerite is taken from death row to a firing range.
And at the execution site, the firing squad is already there,
(31:45):
they're loaded up, they're ready to carry out the sentence.
And Margarita legendarily says, you don't have to tie my hands.
You don't have to blindfold me. This is where we
get the report from some eyewitnesses who said she blew
a kiss to the crowd one last time before they
(32:06):
opened fire. And so at this time, the firing squads
are pretty active. It's not abnormal to hear gunshots in
the morning like this. And just after sunrise, Mata Hari
is dead by a firing squad. She is just 41
years old.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, and I mean, she really was kind of a heel,
you know, in the region. European newspapers are applauding her demise,
referring to the situation as an unmasking, referring to her
as a consciousness spy, and that she deserved what she got.
All the while, the French state is actually auctioning off
(32:47):
all of her seized possessions to pay for the cost
of the trial.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
That's correct. Yeah, the body, they say, is going to
be donated to a teaching hospital. And all of a sudden,
you know, we see this now with the strange wave
of loving and hating celebrities. All of a sudden, Europe,
which once loved Mata Hari, turns against her and says
(33:13):
terrible things about this person. We also have to mention,
as we're closing up here, that there is a huge
possibility that Mata Hari was herself a scapegoat, right? Because
we said there are serious questions about how much spying
she actually did. We know that the French military had
(33:35):
very low morale in 1917. There were mutinies in the
armed forces.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Needed a win. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
People needed a win. They were looking for someone to blame,
a face that they could put to their problems, someone
to punish.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, and people also love a fall from grace story too,
don't they? Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So now we've got all the ingredients for Mata Hari
to be a perfect scapegoat. She's not from France.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
She's a foreigner. She's a foreigner.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
And she has a reputation for being seductive. So she's
someone that is easy for the public to hate.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
In the subsequent years, a lot more research was done
into the situation. Numerous books and film adaptations of her
life came out. And as more and more research was done,
it became clear. pretty clear that she got a bum rap.
The German government did eventually exonerate her after posthumously, obviously.
(34:34):
Doesn't really do too much good, but I get it.
I guess it helped with her legacy in 1930. And
the French dossier that collected all of her supposed spying
activities apparently contained information that indicated that she was, in fact, innocent.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Yeah, and history is so much closer than it looks
in the rearview mirror, folks. We can tell you that
as recently as 2017, France was following up on Mata Hari.
They released various documents relating to the case, and these
documents led a lot of historians to believe that this
(35:11):
woman had been a scapegoat of French officials who were
looking for someone to blame, some kind of a societal
escape hatch, right? A vent for people to get their
frustrations out. And in addition, there were a lot of
people speculating that Mata Hari's disregard for the norms of
(35:32):
the day and the taboos of the day played a
huge role in her arrest, conviction, and execution. Because one
thing that is true throughout most of Western history is boy, howdy,
the patriarch hates women.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You got that right, Ben. And I think we've shown
that in plenty of episodes of this show right here.
But huge thanks to our research associate, Natalia, for her
very first research brief and a subject that I was
woefully underschooled on. Agreed.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Thank you, Natalia, and can't wait to explore more of
your work in the future. Big, big thanks to our
super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Big thanks as well to A.J.
Bahamas Jacobs, a.k.a. The Puzzler, and a tepid We know
what you did to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
The Quister. I know what you did last summer, Jonathan.
It was bad. And also, gosh, Alex Williams, who composed
our theme. Rachel Big Spinish Lance, the doctor herself of
underwater big booms.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Christopher Asiotis, Eve's Jeffcoat, here in spirit. And Noel, big
thanks to you.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
You as well, man. We'll see you next time, folks.
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Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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